This blog person hasn't spent much time on the climate legislation currently stalled in the Senate, not believing — sadly — it has much if any chance of passage. This position was bolstered by a blunt commentary from the NYTimes funniest columnist Gail Collins, who ranted to David Brooks:
An energy bill is much harder than a health care bill because people
do feel in their day-to-day lives that something needs to be done about
health costs, and the possible pain Obama’s plans might inflict is
long-term and theoretical. With energy, it’s just the opposite.You would need one big whopping dramatic moment to get Congress to
pass an effective energy bill — the kind of moment that only comes
along once in every several generations. We had it after Sept. 11. The
country was totally ready to make sacrifices to fight the war on
terror. It would still have been hard, but we could have done it.Instead, President Bush decided to invade Iraq and cut taxes. I am never going to get over that.
Still, President Obama is determined to reach an international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol and, at least in theory, hold down emissions of greenhouse gases, which is to be negotiated this December in Copenhagen. His team is exploring numerous options — including calling it an international trade deal, instead of a treaty, or using the EPA as an enforcer — to make Congress go along.
Meanwhile Congress seems to be fixated on blaming China, and China seems to be fixated on blaming the U.S. Notes analyst Michael Levi for the Council on Foreign Relations:
Members of Congress seem to have made the legal form of a Chinese
commitment their overarching priority. They want to see China make
commitments that are technically legally binding in the same sense that
U.S. commitments would be legally binding under an international
agreement. And if that's not forthcoming then they would want symmetry.
So U.S. commitments would also not be legally binding on the
international level. They seem to be less focused on what the actual
content of the commitments is. Some want to see caps that essentially
mirror the U.S. approach. There is no way that is going to happen. It
doesn't make any sense.
And in Beijing, the focus is on blaming the "developed nations" such as the U.S. for global warming. Wrote Li Heng for People's Daily:
On top of the fact that rich countries are responsible for today's
global warming, these countries are even reluctant to give the funds
and technical support that developing countries need to tackle the
problem. Small wonder the United States is criticized by the
international community.
China has been making this complaint for years. At the United Nations a week ago Wednesday, Premier Hu Jintao promised significant reductions in emissions by 2020, mirroring the Senate bill, but added:
Developed countries should take up their responsibility and provide
new, additional, adequate and predictable financial support to
developing countries to enable them to have access to climate-friendly
technologies.
What is the real objective here? Action to reduce climate risks, or to shift blame to another nation?
Kit Stolz 